Thish ish a big shtinking load of crap, Mish Moneypenny
Sir Sean Connery’s worst movies
Why write a column on Sean Connery’s worst films? Because, dear reader, some of them have been fascinatingly bad. Plus, zillions of people come to see them because, well, they’ve got Connery in them. Chicks dig him. "He’s the sexiest man alive," they coo, while we relatively youthful, non-bald, non-violent types watch the old guy snogging Michelle Pfeiffer or Catherine Zeta-Jones, and wonder what we’re doing wrong.
Zardoz (1973): Imagine a balding Connery running around in a pretentious dystopian future, wearing a red diaper and two Pancho Villa-style ammo belts, chasing a giant, flying stone head. If you’ve seen this camp travesty, you can picture it quite clearly. While breathtakingly poor, this film’s sheer originality has won it a small cult following. Sadly, Zardoz is filled with so many bizarre ideas that the whole thing winds up as a chaotic mess.
A synopsis would simply confuse and infuriate you. Suffice to say that Connery plays a nappy-clad tribal savage who indirectly causes a future race of immortals to give up eternal life. (You’ll be begging for death yourself). My favourite unintentionally funny moment is the ending: Sean escapes into the mountains with main squeeze Charlotte Rampling, presumably to live Happily Ever After. They sit beside each other on what appears to be a bench sticking out of the rocks, and stare blankly into the camera. They continue to sit, unmoving, while time-lapse photography shows them continuing to age. She becomes pregnant, and their infant son grows to adulthood sitting beside them, with the same dead-eyed inertia. Suddenly, the adult son simply gets up and leaves, earning a brief, curious glance from his parents as he departs. Then Sean and Char resume staring until they become skeletons.
Highlander II: The Quickening (1991): Everybody knows how bad this one is. I managed to see it at a sci-fi convention, months before the North American release. The auditorium was packed with excited geeks, all convinced that we were the luckiest people alive, ’cuz we got to see the new Highlander sequel before anybody else. By the end of the picture, we all wanted to find director Russell Mulcahy, slap his face, and shout "Why?"
To his credit, Russ realized (albeit too late) that none of us really wanted to know where the Immortals came from. In desperation, he released a "Renegade Version" that deleted all references to the Planet Zeist. (It didn’t help.) Most video stores carry both versions of this abomination, meaning that they probably have more copies of Highlander 2 on their shelves than The Great Escape. Humanity sucks, sometimes.
Sword of the Valiant (1983): Early in this film, Connery barges into Camelot wearing green armour, green facepaint and antlers. He issues a challenge to the knights of the round table, gets decapitated and sticks his head back on. Sadly, Connery’s Green Knight doesn’t reappear until the end of the film, and we’re left to observe the antics of bulked-out himbo Miles O’Keeffe (of Tarzan, The Ape Man and Ator, The Fighting Eagle fame) as he staggers through a moronic quest. Meanwhile, we sit there wondering if the TV needs dusting. Connery wouldn’t be saddled with such a disappointing co-star again until Medicine Man (1992).
The Avengers (1998): I only just saw this film recently, in preparation for writing this column. A lot of people tried to talk me out of it. The rumours are true: it really is quite dreadful. As Steed and Mrs. Peel, Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman have all the sexual chemistry of two fourth graders waiting for each other to stop talking so they can say their lines. Bizarre cinematic touches such as giant teddy bears and inflatable lake-crossing spheres come across as merely stupid, instead of charmingly offbeat. Still, the horrified panic in the eyes of my friends when I told them that I planned to watch The Avengers was largely unfounded. It’s a bad film all right, but worse ones can be found on this list. It must have been quite a shock to bewildered 1998 moviegoers who actually expected a good film, but to somebody who’s watched Robot Ninja and The Astro-Zombies, it’s a walk in the park. (God only knows what the disastrous two-and-a-half hour original version was like, though.) |
